Design Wall Friday and More...

I am feeling pretty darn good with all I accomplished in the sewing/quilt room this week.
I have already shown the two quilts I got bound earlier this week.  Next I finished two more blocks for my Victoria's Friendship Quilt they are little bitty 4 inch blocks but luckily are pretty simple.  It was fun to fussy cut the floral bars on the Shoo-Fly block and the corners of the Crown block.  As we get closer to finishing up this quilt I am feeling free-er to do more fussy cutting because I know I have plenty of fabrics for finishing.

Next finish is the 2012 Baby Challenge Quilt for New Friends Quilt Circle.  I am a green and pink girl and decided to sash the featured print with it.  OK, I whined a lot about having to use flannel but as my friend Peggy says "it's part of the challenge this year"  I did another machine binding and if you notice I didn't show a close up  LOL...still working on making that look better but it will be a very sturdy binding for sure.
Last night Mr Creative and I went to an auction in the Salt Lake City area and we had our eye on three specific things.  A pretty set of china (which I didn't win), an antique (OK, 1930's-40's era) toy train and an oak hutch top....

Yep, I got the hutch top!  I am so excited to have a place to display more of my special collections and dishes.  It is sitting in front of a half wall that I am going to have Mr Creative and oldest son D use as the base.  I don't have a lot of room for a china cabinet but by placing it on the half wall it will allow me to have half of one  LOL.  It is in very good shape with all the medallions and pieces I will need to make it a beautiful display piece.  I am going to buy some lights to put in so that you will be able to see what I put inside.  I am a happy girl this morning.
Oh, yeah, Mr Creative got his train too!  LOL  We paid $90 for the train and $95 for the hutch so I tease him that by bulk mine was the better buy.

One More Thrift Store Buy and A NY Beauty

 From yesterday's shopping trip to DI I also found a great pattern for my grd's Cabbage Patch Kid doll.  When DD was a little girl I would buy these type of patterns that had an outfit for her and then a matching one for her CPK Deanna.  I was so pleased to find an unused pattern for future doll outfits .  You can see that the CPK iron-ons were still intact!  Gotta wait a bit until little K can fit the patterns but that's OK

This is my very first finished New York Beauty block!  I have to admit that it was my "learning" block and I had to undo and re-do a bit but it's so pretty.  This will be an all mixed up quilt using all kinds of prints from my 19th century stash.  No block will be the same but the fabrics will appear in multiple blocks.
I am hand piecing this one using INKLINGO which is making it so easy...REALLY it is!  LOL 
I have decided to continue by piecing the largest arc and then the middle one and then the center one and I will add the outside piece last to all the blocks. 
It will not be a get 'er done project but one I can take my time with.

Thrift Store and New Shoes

Here in Utah our local thrift stores are mostly Deseret Industries (DI).  My family loves to find all kinds of bargains there and since I had a bit of time to play today I went in to my local store.  I was looking for a jar to keep my homemade rosewater in but of course no jar for that but look what I brought home!
In the back is a candle holder for my Winterberry by Pfaltzgraff Christmas/Winter dishes.  Now I have a matched pair as I had bought one at a yard sale last summer...

The oil/vinagar bottle is going to join the others in my paper crafting supplies and the candy dish will now become my Kosher salt holder.  There is a funny story behind the salt container.
When my family visited us for my dd's HS graduation  we had a bunch of pineapple pieces leftover from the fruit tray after the party.  My sweet Mom decided to make a pineapple casserole for dinner the next night.  She needed some sugar and spotted the bowl sitting on my stove.  We dug into the casserole that evening for supper and YUCKY!  She didn't know I kept Kosher salt in my sugar bowl as we didn't use that much sugar  LOL  One day I spotted the little ceramic "tag" of word salt and knew it needed to come home with me.  I put away the sugar bowl and used a candy dish much like the one in the picture.  It had just been accidentally broken last week and I was glad to get a new salt container.
As for the shoes.  I went into Ross hoping to find a pair of flatter black sandals but saw these cute tan/nude ones and was thrilled.  I love White Mountain shoes because comfort is just as important to the company as looks.  These looked cute but they have the welcome bonus of being so very comfortable.

 

The only problem is the sticker that some "idiot" placed on the suede foot-bed!  Sheesh, as you can see it hasn't been easy trying to get it off and I don't want to ruin my sandals or have that sticky tag getting goo on the bottom of my foot.  I am going to do some surfing on the net and hopefully find a solution...stay tuned.

My Little Girl

When my son asked me to baby sit little Miss K on Saturday I jumped at the chance and of course decided to take a few pictures. 
Loved this shot of her and after some fiddling around with Picassa I came up with this sweet face.

New Friends BOM-2010 Finished

It's always good to have another quilt finished but this one is special. 
I lead New Friends Quilt Circle's block of the month  2010 ( I think  LOL) and this was one of the two quilts I did as the samples.  I did one that I gave to my grd C that was made with pink, black and white fabrics that turned out great, however this one I made for my living room and I love it.
I used 19th Century reproductions in pinks, green, tan/cream, and blues.  I wasn't sure about the blue but I think it adds a bit of a spark to the quilt.  It has been waiting quite a while for quilting and when I found out a new member of our group is a long arm quilter I decided to give her the quilt to do.  Her name is Mary Spencer and her business  is LIVING QUILTS.COM
 I requested feathered wreath's  and she did some great motifs playing the the feathers idea.  I think I will request in the future not such dense quilting but it's so nice to have something new for my wall and something to enter in our local show in July!  Hurrah!

Finished Friday...almost!

Yeah, I know it is actually is Saturday but it sounded better to say Finished Friday.  LOL
Well, each year my quilt group New Friends Quilt Circle does a special community service quilt project.  We call it our Baby Quilt Challenge.   Someone from the group purchases fabric and divides it into either fat quarters or half yards, depending on the fabric, and members of the group are asked to create a quilt to be donated to an area hospital for use with their NICU.   Last year the fabric with panels were chosen as the challenge and I did create a quilt top but unfortunately it never got quilted and so it sat in the UFO pile until Jan of this year.  I did get it about half quilted but then it sat again until this weekend.  It is finally finished. 
I often use the projects to work on new ideas and techniques.  Making the top worked out pretty well and I did the machine quilting myself...it has a bit to be desired but I tried out a stitch in my machine that did a wavy line that worked out quite well on most parts but I ended up with a bit too much stitching in the center of the quilt this time.  I also decided to work on my machine binding but with the binding already cut for a narrow hand bound quilt it was more tricky than it could have been and the corners are at bit wonky but it certainly went much faster than hand work!  LOL
I am glad that it is now finished and I can turn it in for this year's show challenge area.  Now to finished this year's quilt  LOL

"Celebrate" With Three Dog Night!

 

 

From the Quilt Room

Funny how things seem to go along in order and then before you know it chaos everywhere!  LOL
A picture of the design wall in my quilt room...

 Yep all those blocks show works in progress! 
Upper left New Friends BOM Debbie Mumm's 20th Anniversary Quilt
middle and lower left and across the middle Harry Potter Project of Doom blocks
peeking from behind the Harry blocks is a little LeMoyne Star table runner
lower center Red and Cheddar Feathered Stars
right lower orphan block basket
lower right Bonnie Hunter's Crumb blocks MY style
Upper and middle center applique blocks from Lori Smith's Victoria's Friendship Quilt
All of that are PIGS (projects in grocery sacks), UFOs (unfinished objects) WIPs (works in progress)  or whatever you want to call them. 
So of course I decided to start this....

This is the beginning of the New York Beauty done with 18th Century Repro prints in a mix and NOT match style.   This is my inspiration...but I will do my own thing.  I am using Cathi's from Quilt Obsession (see my side bar) idea of dividing my pieces into glassine envelopes.  So far it works great and I am on my way to making 16 blocks   I will be doing them the "easy" way with Linda Franz's INKLINGO method and they come together so nicely and with the lines printed on my fabric everything matches up.  Here they are ready to go and hopefully you can see the lines printed on the fabric for cutting and stitching.  THANKS Linda I would NEVER have tried this on my own!

Catching UP

Been busy doing this and that but not anything terribly exciting until last weekend with the Utah Scottish Festival. 
Had fun but...boy did we get hit with WINDS!  The sun shelters were going down left and right and displays were knocked over and papers and kilts were flying.
All of that happened on Saturday from about 11 AM until we left about 9 PM.  Most of us had our booths down by 3 PM and I felt bad for those who had them almost blow away with poles bending or snapping and covers lifting and tearing.
Fridays was much less windy and warm but that Saturday was a killer!
Here's a few pictures

Kitchen Herbs

I love growing herbs but I don't always have the best success with in-ground planting...unless it is something that almost grows all by itself!  LOL
I have a huge sage plant, chives that do very well and a rosemary in a pot that has made it through two winters in the house.  The more tender herbs are much less successful. 
I saw a cute pin on Pintrest where someone(s) had used kitchen colanders to grow plants.  Well, why not try the herbs in a few?  I had Mr Creative search the local thrift store for them every time he went and we ended up with three.  In went some of those cocoa fiber basket liners and then potting soil.  I figured they would do as well as in pots.  One warning I found was to be sure the metal containers didn't get too hot as they will "cook" the plants.  YIKES!
So far they are doing pretty well, I planted oregano, sweet basil, cilantro, and a stray petunia.  I think the basil is now ready to cut both in the colander planter and in the multi-plant pot that is growing herbs in the side openings and a patio tomato on the top.
Fingers crossed for a successful herb growing method at last!

Baby Squash and a New Computer

After all the hard work of getting the garden established Mr Creative is getting to see some wonderful results!  Yep, those are baby Spaghetti squash on the vines!  We are really glad to see them as they are one of our favorite squashes to replace a carb heavy food, pasta.  Now, I am looking for the first tomatoes  LOL

Son A bugged us until we FINALLY gave the go-ahead to build us a new computer.  He ordered it from his favorite site and once it got here assembled it "in a trice" as they used to say.  It is much faster than the old one and is very quiet too!  LOL
He has also hooked up the old hard drive so that we can bit by bit transfer information that might still be on it like email addresses etc.
Busy weekend here as we got a bunch of yard work done and a little too much sun on the shoulders and neck but I will survive.  I am glad to be over my sore throat as I was worried I was getting sick but it was probably just a reaction to all the cooler weather and dampness.

Easter 2012 Scrapbook Pages

Easter this past year was luckily a nice warm day so that we could eat our dinner outside.

Oldest son D and his family joined us for the meal which we enjoyed in the sunshine of late Sunday afternoon.

D had come early and "hid" plastic filled Easter Eggs which the kids hunted afterwords.  

I got to use a new kit ( or new to me) from Echo Park that I purchased at the spring Scrapbook USA Expo.  I loved the cheerful colors and cute embellishments.  I used the hexagon paper which has become a popular motif in papercrafting  and it fits nicely with my other hobby of quilt making  LOL

Supplies:

paper and paper embellishments Echo Park, flowers and buttons from stash, ribbon American Crafts.

Left side was inspired from a sketch by Sketch Inspirations

Summer Disney Memories and Herbs

 Here are a couple of recent scrapbook pages from our summer 2011 trip to Walt Disney World trip.  I really did enjoy meeting Mickey and Minnie but the lighting was awe-full!  I had trouble getting decent pictures but it was nice to be inside with the air conditioning and we waited until late in the day to do the pictures.  Howard and I ware wearing our Anniversary buttons and got so many Happy Anniversary greetings from "cast members" and others throughout the day.
Second page is the Dumbo ride.  I wanted to use something different in colors and try making it simple.  I used a sketch from Page Maps vol 2 with several tweaks    Funny thing is that the ribbon is from a Christmas release by American Crafts.  Perfect colors if I do say so myself.

I love to use fresh herbs and have tried several ways to grow it before.  I saw this idea of planting in old collendars first on Pintrest and then several other places online.  I know that you have to be careful not to bake the roots in the metal containers but the herbs need plenty of sun.  I will watch them closely for wilting and water a couple times of day if I need to.  I think the sprinklers will water them each night but I still will make sure they are not getting too much heat.It would be great to have this idea work and have lovely fresh herbs this summer.

Life Goes On

 So it's been nine days since our little K was born.  She has been a very good baby from all accounts, sleeps nicely and let's Mommy and Daddy sleep some too.  She lost weight from her birth of 5 lbs a bit under 3 oz down to 4 lbs 13 oz but last check she was back to 5 lbs.  She became a bit jaundiced but it is slowly going away and she won't have to have any more foot sticks to get blood!
She still feels like a little doll or stuffie when I hold her but we have been blessed with her getting a little bit bigger and stronger each day!

 Mommy P mentioned that she would like a few more receiving blankets and I offered to make her a few double layered ones...flannel on one side and cotton on the other.  I got fabric to make three, two smaller ones and then one larger one for later.  It was fun to find girly colors and prints for a change but at least there is more and more cute prints for boys these days. 

 I finally finished the baby quilt last week right after she was born and it is quite large.  I love the pretty colors and soft prints and K's Mommy liked it too!  I might be able to display it in the July Steel Days quilt show depending on how much washing it gets  LOL..that's OK I make quilts for use most of the time and I am glad she will be sleeping under it instead of having it hanging on a wall or folded away in a drawer.

 It is a lovely spring here in Utah and about two weeks ahead of "normal".  I grabbed my camera when Belle and I walked this morning and thought I would share a couple of pictures I took.  I love the pretty cornflowers that are in bloom every where right now.  I know they will be done in a week or so so this will be a way to remember.  Belle looks funny in the picture as she turns around to cheese at the camera!  LOL
It's perfect walking weather now but since it is spring I figure it's "just wait, and it will be different"

One of the Reasons Why...

Yep, I have been AWOL from blogging this past few weeks and this is one of the small reasons why.
My new grand daughter was born a bit early...3 weeks... but we are very happy to meet her.
Here she is about 4 hours old with her daddy oldest son D.
She is tiny but able to come home after 3 days.  She is in preemie clothes for now but we are sure she will be growing out of them very soon!

More Harry Potter Books

It's been a while since I have sewed any books for my Harry Potter Project of Doom quilt and these along with a few others had been waiting with fabrics chosen for the books.  I knew these would be easy enough to get done pretty quickly and they were..  I liked the dragonfly print on the book with the diamond and the funky batik in orange, yellow and green.  I love being able to hunt up some of the craziest prints and add them to the bookshelves in progress.
Hopefully it won't be so long between blocks.

Goodbye Old Friend

Way back in 1971 my parents bought me a new bedroom set...it was white French Provencal and of course I had a new mattress to go with it.  The bedroom set is sort of still around...part in NY with DD and family and part here in Utah still with me.  That mattress has traveled with me from Florida, to NC then to college at UNCA, stayed back at home for a few years until Mr Creative and I brought it out to Utah for my DD's room.

Well, the time has come for that 41 year old mattress and box spring to go back to the earth!  LOL

The twin bed has been replaced with a new futon...it surely won't sleep the same and won't have the same memories but it will be more useful when we have guests which we are in about a week!

Horrible picture of me but I did it with a timer and sat the camera on a table

There's Been Some Creating Goin' All

Do you remember that old song...
Grandma don't allow no.......
Well lately I feel like that's been my theme song as far as crafting in my paper stash!  LOL
Two new projects from Monday and Tuesday of this week

 I bought this cute scalloped magnet board unfinished at Scrapbook USA in March and it's been waiting.  I sprayed painted it on Saturday finally, and then realized I had deleted the photo I took of the decorated board.  So I just pulled out some flowers (as you can see I had plenty of supplies to work with) buttons and and a few jewels.  Grson I helped me pick buttons and flowers to place on the board and then helped me add the glue dots and stick them down.  This will live in my scrapbook room thus the purple and green theme.  I hope to use it to place inspiration ideas like the one on the right from a magazine with some cute phrases I could use on cards.
Below it the layout I created using a sketch from Sketch Inspiration...I very rarely do a single photo page but this one worked perfectly for the challenge.  I used papers from DCWV, added some red, black and gold ribbon and cut the title from MS Elegant Cakes cart.  A bit of Stickles and inking and it turned out very nicely.

Happy Birthday Little I

Time marches on, or maybe I should say zips along so fast, and Grandson I turned 5 on April 16. He is very much into Lego Star Wars right now so Nana and Papa gave him a new set...only to find out that he already has this set! LOL It's OK he says as he had lost R2 D2 and now he has a new one.
I have been lucky to spend time weekly with I and know a bit about his likes and dislikes
Likes: Lego Star Wars, riding his bike, baking with Nana, the color blue, eating Chef Boyardee Mini Ravioli, ABC-123's with meatballs, marshmallows, Capri Sun Raging Waters, his light up shoes, eating snow, doing puzzles, playing Go Fish, mini corn dogs, ice cream cones, deviled eggs and going to Pre-School

Not so much: Brushing his teeth, cleaning up his toys, washing up for lunch time, tortilla chips, and having to share video games with his brothers
Happy Happy Birthday

2012 Baby Quilt Challenge Top

The top is done...I struggled with this one...reminds me why I am not a fan of piecing with flannel! LOL
I am planning on piecing the back soon so that I can get it quilted by myself on my Viking. I think I can get to it later today, crossing my fingers LOL